


Shopping Trip

by hauntedshoes



Category: The Centricide (Webseries)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Slight Existentialism, and hot topic, but it's kinda platonic, i call it goth unity, this is silly and you should feel silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:41:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25251046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedshoes/pseuds/hauntedshoes
Summary: While visiting his favourite shop, Hot Topic, for the first time Anfash comes across someone else.Someone else who just so happens to be dead.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32





	Shopping Trip

Anfash hated consumerism, or rather, he was supposed to hate consumerism. In reality, he would journey to Hot Topic twice a week in order to buy a sweet t-shirt or maybe some gloves or a new mask that could be twice as edgy as the one he wore last week. It’s yet another thing that would get him into trouble with both the other anarchists and the right-wing bunch. The former calling his a capitalist shill and the latter calling him a sell-out. However, no matter how much Anfash tried to care, he couldn’t find it in himself to care. There were some things worth more than group acceptance or acknowledgement that his existence wasn’t a paradox and that thing was some damn good mall goth merch.

As far as Anfash was aware, aside from the mass amount of malls in Ancapistan, the entire World of Ideas shared one mall. It was utterly ginormous. It was one of those spaces in the World of Ideas that didn’t really seem to have an end to it or a beginning either. Likely because it had to exist to accommodate vague representations of everything humanity would regard as symbolically important. Needless to say, it was full of all kinds of odd and even grotesque trinkets so long as humans saw it an impactful metaphor. The others half exchanged physical currency for material goods, like a mall.

Anfash was also somewhat surprised that the entire mall was still standing despite the ongoing ‘Centricide’. The mall being run by Centrists for most of its history. Anfash was glad that the whole hub hadn’t been burnt to the ground yet or at least have its entire stock replaced with grills now.

_“No objects relating to politics, now you must only grill.” – A centrist, probably._

Luckily, quite the opposite was true. More people doing more crazy violent shit meant there were fewer people around to bother Anfash on his shopping trips. There would also just be far more stock in the one Hot Topic in the entire World of Ideas. In the bleak, empty place, you really had to move quickly and remember everything about the layout for you not to be pestered by other judgemental ideologies. With the Centricide, at least Anfash’s job to acquire vaguely gothic-looking merchandise would be quick and personal.

Nobody to bother him or judge him, just a good place to spend his money.

Then again, Anfash couldn’t recall any ideologies actually inside of Hot Topic while Anfash shopped there. He only ever came across others hollering him outside just to be mean to him. Anfash had contemplated hitting them with a baseball bat. Not that he could, most of them also carried baseball bats or guns. Anfash thought he would never likely find a friend who would share his sense of mall goth fashion and he was just fine with that. Anfash had always told himself that he should be unique and always be himself: this was a contradiction, this was not something he abided by whatsoever for the most part. Anfash didn’t realise this, it was probably why it was unhappy.

Nevertheless, he was sure that Hot Topic trips did make him happy. Hot Topic brought him that short-lived burst of joy that purchasing a likely overpriced pseudo-gothic knickknack would bring anyone. Even though he’d be alone, even though he’d have nobody to share it with. It made him feel as if he was being genuine for a little while.

As he pushed open the entrance. The only person in the desolate mallscape. The crashing sound of the double doors leaving so much more impact than they had done before. Echoing and making Anfash jump. He could almost fall backwards into that nerd painted wonderland. The smell of plastic and cheap polyester filled his lungs. It was delightful and maybe toxic.

As Anfash walked through, feeling faint from the fumes (or dizzying excitement) something rare caught his eye. It was something that he could barely believe: it was another person - a shadow of a person at that.

Anfash couldn’t tell if it was a shadow at first, or if it was someone’s whose clothing was so dark that it just appeared that they were. Either way, this meant that they had even more of a sense of style than Anfash himself. Anfash thought this was unacceptable and yet, it drew him in.

The humanoid figure was muttering something to himself as he perused through the various racks of clothing. Anfash, without hesitation, tapped this angry-sounding dark figure on the shoulder.

“Hello!” Anfash screamed.

The figure’s head immediately turned like lightning. Anfash jumped back into the rack of vinyl’s behind him. Anfash had never collected vinyl records, but he had imagined that they would be fun to smash. If he did fall back and crack them, he would have felt bad for ruining the Hot Topic though. The one place that Anfash would definitely restrain his urge to smash. Luckily for him, it seemed that nothing had actually been smashed with the tiny amount of bodyweight he had.

“Woah, calm down.” The figure rolled his eyes and lifted Anfash off the record display. Anfash dusted himself and smiled at this strange man before realising he was wearing a face mask.

Anfash was right in his initial assumption, he really did have a better sense of style than he did. For one, he wore far more makeup than Anfash but not in that gross girly way in a way that was goth as fuck. Lots of deep purple eyeliner which dripped along his cheek covered his face, there was enough white powder so that absolutely no pigment showed on his skin, small black eyes and dyed black hair. His facial appearance was just the start of it though he was wearing skulls everywhere! Giant skull earrings, necklace, shirt, it had such an impact and was something Anfash could never get away with wearing. Not with the external pressure coming at from both the far-left and far-right. The genuine expression to just be mall goth was evident and overwhelming. Anfash felt as if this man had to be lucky.

“So uh, what are you doing in the only Hot Topic in the World of Ideas?” Anfash had to remain as calm as possible.

“Duh, what do you think I’m doing.”

Anfash looked at him nervously all whilst not fully understanding what he meant when he said that.

“I’m shopping, you idiot, what else?”

Anfash was a little taken aback by his rudeness but replied anyway. “Wow, yes I was doing the same. It’s so rare to see someone else in here, you know!”

“What a surprise.” He rolled his eyes in a confusing display of muddling the sarcastic and the serious. “Say since another person in the flesh is actually here with me, want to help me pick something out?”

“Boy, would I love to!” Anfash could barely contain his excitement.

Anfash spent a great deal of time almost as close as possible to this strange ideology he had never seen before. He had sorted through the several clothing wracks and pointed out every other thing that took his fancy. His companion, however, was more of the moody sort. He had denied all of Anfash’s suggestions on a seemingly flippant basis. However, Anfash kept trying, nobody else would ever do something like this with him.

On the second time, he was going through the clothing rack looking for at least one thing that his friend might like, Anfash decided that he should work out who he actually was. It would at least be polite since he was contemplating buying a good portion of the shirts that his friend seemed to show a little bit of interest in.

“Say, who are you? You’re not like any political ideology I’ve seen before, are you even an ideology?” Anfash asked.

“Me? I’m Political Nihilist, what of it?” He turned from the clothing racks, and those dark eyes shot straight into Anfash.

“Wait, Political Nihilist? Isn’t that a centrist ideology?”

“God, listen to that whining, you say that like it’s a bad thing.” He frowned.

Anfash took his hands off the clothing rack and backed away a little. “I’m saying that, well it is, but I heard rumours that you were dead!”

“Dead? Me? Well yeah, I did die, but do you think I care? Hell isn’t a prison, life is the prison.”

Anfash nearly fell back into the same vinyl record shelf behind him. “You’re a fucking ghost?!”

Political Nihilist casually threw one of the all-black t-shirts on the floor next to Anfash. “Ehh, aren’t we all ghosts, properties of an invisible world that we may never gain true power in?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’m good at ignoring the fact I’m kinda dead.”

If Political Nihilist was a ghost, did these mean his seemingly socket-less eyes and bleak white skin was a by-product of that? _Would it be a worthy cause to die for the aesthetic?_

“Uh, alright,” Anfash said.

“If everything here is symbolic, then hell is too. If I think the right way, I can get myself out pretty easily. You’ve been here long enough; don’t you get that?”

Anfash shook his head.

“Does it bother you that I died here at one point?” Political Nihilist continued.

“Not at all, I think death makes you look totally badass!” Anfash replied.

Anfash picked up the shirt that was thrown at him and started to examine it. It was really quite dashing, Anfash was surprised that he had looked over it before.

“I threw it at you because I think it would kind of suit you, fit your edgy facemask at least, there is nothing here for me today.” Political Nihilist shook his head. “I guess I should thank you for helping me look, though.”

Anfash folded up the t-shirt and placed it under his arm. “It was a delight! I never see anyone here let alone someone here genuinely for genuine reasons.”

Political Nihilist chucked. “Same here, surprised I never came across you in my waking life.”

“Say, Political Nihilist, if everything here is symbolic, then what is Hot Topic suppose to represent, is it something deeper, do you know?”

“It represents an absolutely independent sense of fashion, my friend.”

“Heck yeah!”

In that brief moment, Anfash had never felt more accepted in his life.

Before Anfash could rush over and take his new purchase home, Political Nihilist by his side, he was shocked to see yet another person entering the store. Hot Topic had never been this full before. Anfash was starting to feel as if he had entered an alternate universe.

This new person had come up behind him. He was wearing a gold fedora and a golden suit. Anfash couldn’t tell his expression from the sunglasses, but Anfash wanted to guess that he was nervous.

“Hello, you two?” He did a small nod to regard both Anfash and Political Nihilist. “Since it’s June again, I am looking for directions to Claire’s.”


End file.
